


The Woods

by morganalegay



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/F, Original Character(s), Original Fiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-25
Updated: 2018-05-25
Packaged: 2019-05-13 12:23:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14748801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morganalegay/pseuds/morganalegay
Summary: Let’s say things stop working out for you. Let’s say the strings of fate holding your life together start to fray. Let’s say the luck that has protected you for so long finally abandons you. Let’s say you’ve relied on those small pieces of magic for so long that you don’t remember how to provide for yourself any more. Let’s say one day your children stop coming home. They can sense something is wrong. Let’s say that the charms that stopped the aches in your frail bones wear off. You never expected that you would live long enough to see your magic run out.





	The Woods

Let’s say things stop working out for you. Let’s say the strings of fate holding your life together start to fray. Let’s say the luck that has protected you for so long finally abandons you. Let’s say you’ve relied on those small pieces of magic for so long that you don’t remember how to provide for yourself any more. Let’s say one day your children stop coming home. They can sense something is wrong. Let’s say that the charms that stopped the aches in your frail bones wear off. You never expected that you would live long enough to see your magic run out.  
Is this what old age feels like? You never imagined it would be like this.  
You never imagined that dying would be so lonely, that everyone, still full of life, would leave you behind while you struggled to take your next breath.  
The only one who visits you any more is an enigma. A spirit of the forest cloaked in night and moonlight and falling stars. You were lovers once, but she doesn’t love you anymore. You never blamed her though, who could? She was always ethereal, ageless, and you were doomed to die in the forest which gave you life. She told you that you could be like her, but you refused. How could a witch of the woods live forever with someone like her? She still shows up when you least expect it. She strokes your wrinkled cheek, smiling when you scoff at her. You have no use for a creature so beautiful and senseless, but she is all you have left, and she reminds of before. When you were young and beautiful too.  
When you were young the boys from the village in the hills asked you how to make girls fall in love with them and you said “you can’t make a woman do something she does not want to” with a musical laugh. You had a suspicion they were asking about you.  
“What about love potions?” They had a mischievous glint in their eyes and they elbowed each other, laughing. You remembered the boys from the village on the outskirts of the woods. They were shy around women, but constantly looking for a way to prove themselves.  
“One with honor and charm doesn’t need a love potion to make someone fall in love.” You speak from experience. Somehow you had enticed the most beautiful being in the woods. “Now take these herbs home to your mothers and tell them I wish them happiness and prosperity.” When you send them out the door their noisy feet startle your children lying in the shade and they run, their white and brown speckled fur disappearing into the brush. You don’t need to warn them not to stay out after dark.  
The first time you met your lover the sun was starting to set on the horizon. You had heard whispers of what dwelled in the depths of night, but you did not pay it much attention. You were marked by the forest, and foolishly thought that you would be safe within it. As the last patches of light faded from the sky you began to worry. You knew you were close to your cottage, but you couldn’t remember which direction it was in. You knew you had to turn back, but you were filled with a hollow, empty apathy like you had never felt before. Why did you have to go inside at all? Then she appeared, a shape next to you in the shadows. A strong but delicate hand wrapped around yours and you didn’t see her smile at you, but you know she did.  
“Are you lost?” Her voice was melodic, but inhuman.  
“I think I am.” You weren’t smart enough to be afraid.  
“Please, let me walk you home. The trees here have teeth.” You didn’t understand, but somehow you knew what she meant.  
You were happy when she visited you each day at dusk with an owl perched on her shoulder and you kissed her each morning before she faded away at dawn. She couldn’t remain in the mortal realm in the daylight, and you never argued with her to stay. In all those years, you never once caught a glimpse of her face, but in the dark and the soft shadows of the candle light you could feel high cheekbones, lips blooming like the moonflowers creeping up your walls when they touched your skin, hair thick and mossy spread on your pillow. You could never see any proof that she had visited when she left, but you remembered her, and your lips tingled when you whispered her name. You were never lonely, but you missed her when she was gone. You know she must have missed you too when she offered you eternal life, boundless power and magic, but you stopped her before she could go on. It would be false to say that she wasn’t disappointed, but you weren’t the first mortal to live in the forest and knew you wouldn’t be the last. She had loved mortals before you, and she would love them after. As you grew older, she visited less and less frequently. She said she hated being reminded of the vulgarity of passing of time, but you thought she was just afraid to see you die.  
As you feel the last shards of your power slip away, your children no longer eat from your hands. They are almost soundless as they flee from your garden back into the woods. At night you see their luminous eyes watching, mistrustful, but curious. You don’t call out to them. You feel like your own ailing body has betrayed your bond, that you don’t deserve them anymore. You plant an extra row of sweet potatoes for them in your garden, your bones aching from kneeling in the soil and you leave out a tin of goat’s milk for their fawns. You know that they will never come back to you, but you still replace it every morning. You must respect that, even if it breaks your heart more than anything, more than the little girls you could not heal when the sickness came, more than when you had to tell their mothers they were beyond help. Then, you couldn’t imagine anything sadder than their small bodies being lowered into the ground. Now you like to think that you understand. Your children have left you too, and you’re alone.  
Maybe your mother felt the same way. You were taken by the trees when you were fifteen, they could sense your powers, the gift given to you by the ancient gods. They called to the magic inside of you and no one was foolish enough to argue, not even you. You had no kingdom, you served men, women, and creatures without hesitation, loyal only to the seasons. Despite your devotion, death still hounded you. You must admit, nature is nature. Nature is cruel, but it does not discriminate. It is the only impartial judge. You’ve always known that its verdict would fall upon you, no matter how long you kept it at bay, no matter how she looked when she begged you to join her, ageless among nymphs and faeries and spirits.  
Your name fades into nothing more than myth in your final days. People don’t believe in you any more, just as they would scoff at the fantastical histories of their own ancestors. You are still alive, but you might as well be dead. The last woman to come to you has tears in her eyes when she knocks on your door. Dust mites float in the sunlight as you squint out to her on your doorstep. “Will you help me?” Her voice is broken.  
“How did you find me?” You don’t mean to be harsh. She is the first person you’ve spoken to in moons.  
“Will you help me?” She asks again. Her arms are weakly clutching at her stomach and there are sticks in her hair. Her eyes are muddy brown. She reminds you of someone on the edges of your memory, someone from before. “Please. My grandmother told me to find you. She said you would.”  
“Who are you?” You feel slow, honey in your veins instead of blood. You know these are not the questions you should be asking, but you can’t make your mouth catch up to your thoughts.  
“There’s a famine, the king says that nothing can bring the crops back. We will run out of food within days.” Your eyes fill with tears in response to her own, your mouth set in a tight, trembling line. You hadn’t heard about it. You hadn’t heard any news from the kingdom since your brother died. He had been a member of the royal court, had sent word from the king on the wings of crows. You know you can not help her. She reminds you of your first love, soft-spoken, with jet black hair and kindness behind weary eyes.  
“I am truly sorry.” You don’t have to try. You forgot the spell to coax your sugar peas out of the ground years ago, and you know it’s pointless to lie. Honesty is the only way of the forest, but telling her that she is beyond your help is harder than you could have imagined.  
The girl leaves with her arms full of your last sweet potatoes. If your children refuse them, maybe hers won’t.  
Let’s say things stop working out for you, as you’ve always known they would. You just didn’t know it would be so soon and didn’t know how much it would hurt to watch the world you had built slip from your grasp while you were still alive. Is this how it feels to grow old? You wish you could go back in time and say yes, that you could wake up in your lover’s arms every morning and never have to say goodbye. You wish you had respected the raw power of nature just a little less, been a little more careless. Reveled in your own hubris and danced in the forest with her until your feet hurt and the sun rose on the horizon.


End file.
